My Boss Has Never Seen Me . . . Again

I get a new boss about every two years.  It seems like supervising me is a step in the career ladder at Big Corporation. This puts quite a weight of responsibility on my shoulders and I try to make the step as challenging as possible for the current manager. This is made easier by the fact that I work at home in an office three thousand miles away from the hub. Unless I make the trek to Boulder, these guys don’t ever see me. When I do go to Boulder I can roam the halls for days, passing my boss time and again, without so much as a glance. I can attend meetings anonymously, lurking at the back asking annoying questions. If someone asks  “who are you” I can say that I am an auditor from headquarters. That clears a room fast.

It was particularly rewarding to mess with one boss’s brain. He was trying to establish himself as a to-be-taken seriously manager. I showed up for our first meeting together with my Asian colleague  (who also reported to him remotely) and introduced myself to him as Ms Chan (my colleague’s name). And I introduced her as Ms. O’Kearn. Not a blink.  We allowed him to carry on under this false impression for about fifteen minutes before I buckled and confessed.

This same boss later got the delux treatment when a bunch of us were on a business trip together and we had to have a group meeting in his hotel room. My colleageue and I were the first to arrive and I put down my laptop and purse and threw myself on to his bed declaring “I am so tired  I could fall asleep right here. Let me nap until the others arrive.” The look of horror was priceless.

My favorite prank of all time however was directed at my boss’s boss — a senior exec. He was notorious for ignoring pleas for much needed responses and approvals. After failing multiple times toget him to respond to her emails, I suggested to my colleague that she send one last email with the header “Did You Know that Linshaolin Used to Be a Victoria Secrets Model?” She did as instructed, marked her email “Return Receipt Requested” and sent it off. We synchronized our watches. At forty-three seconds the Return Receipt was sent, meaning Boss Man had read the mail. My colleague’s email had said “Now that I have your attention, please answer my previous three emails.” He did not respond.

So in October I will get to go to Boulder to meet my newest boss for the first time. He is already quite worried having been forewarned by his predecessor and by the fact that I recently exchanged the following with him via instant message:

Me: was the information I sent you sufficient — you said you needed it  urgently so I pulled it together this morning. Him — I have not had time to look at it yet. Me: — oh, it was good then that I got up at 4 AM to work on it.

I feel a bit sorry for my managers. I should be more gracious in allowing them to savour the climb up the corporate ladder. Perhaps this year when I write my annual holiday office poem to share with my peers I will be a bit kinder to the senior staff. I will leave out all references to golf, Do Not Disturb, and Twister.